What kind of algae/bacteria? (detailed photos)

[kinetic]

It grows back 24 hours after I siphon the sand, but doesn't get much worse than this. I'm thinking it's bacteria? But it's almost like dinos.

Nothing weird with parameters (other than mg being high):
Ammonia/Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
Phos: 6ppb
Salinity: 1.026
Ca: 420
Alk: 8dKH
Mg: 1750ppm (yeah...)

Some notes:

• My trochus snails are visibly eating it.
• It grows on the rocks, snails, and glass
• It also grows on my sand, doesn't matter how high or low the flow is
• It doesn't get matted, it's brown
• It doesn't get any worse than how you see it, but it does happen within 24 hours. A week later it's the same

What do you think?

 

[Denisk]

Better to look under a microscope. But it looks like something I just beat. For me it was Dino’s.

Zero nitrates caused it for me. At least that’s what many told me.

 

[kinetic]

Better to look under a microscope. But it looks like something I just beat. For me it was Dino’s.

Zero nitrates caused it for me. At least that’s what many told me.

I don't have a telescope. So if you increase nitrates it helped get rid of it?

I have 0 nitrates, and plenty of phosphates. I think due to a MarinePure ceramic plate I have in the sump.

 

[Denisk]

So for me it lived in my sand and pretty much everywhere I can think lol. Raising nitrates helped but I did do a few other things. I also removed all my sand but not all at once, and bought a uv sterilizer. I ran carbon but no gfo and removed my refugium.

Also 6ppb is hardly anything. That comes out to .02 ppm.

There is a great Dino thread that really helped me out. But whatever you do, don’t overthink it. That’s what I did and I think it just caused me such a headache haha.

 

[kinetic]

So for me it lived in my sand and pretty much everywhere I can think lol. Raising nitrates helped but I did do a few other things. I also removed all my sand but not all at once, and bought a uv sterilizer. I ran carbon but no gfo and removed my refugium.

Also 6ppb is hardly anything. That comes out to .02 ppm.

There is a great Dino thread that really helped me out. But whatever you do, don’t overthink it. That’s what I did and I think it just caused me such a headache haha.

I hear you on overthinking it. I can manage it by just raking the sand a bit every few days. Really probably not worth going through a ton of work and worrying about it, at least not yet. Though if it's clearly something I can get rid of easily, that would be nice. Like cyano is super easy to get rid of (in my experience) with just some chemiclean.

 

[Denisk]

I hear you on overthinking it. I can manage it by just raking the sand a bit every few days. Really probably not worth going through a ton of work and worrying about it, at least not yet. Though if it's clearly something I can get rid of easily, that would be nice. Like cyano is super easy to get rid of (in my experience) with just some chemiclean.

Yeah well in this case. The concept is you want raise your p04 and no3 so you have other algae grow to then instead outcompete the Dino. If you get cyano don’t use chemi clean. Instead let it ride out it’s course.

 

[kinetic]

Well, I just want to tinker. Here's my plan:

1. Remove my MarinePure Ceramic plate: see if I can get NO3 levels up without any mini cycles of ammonia/nitrite levels.
2. Try to maintain my NO3/PO4 levels with my chaeto reactor (which can't grow anything since I have 0 NO3) and add a few marinepure ceramic spheres (instead of the big plate)

If the ceramic plate doesn't help with increase no3, I'll try:

1. Dose amino acids with a dosing pump (like Polyp-Boost product)
2. Add something like reef roids or reef chili to my auto feeder to increase food without making my fish too fat

I ordered some DinoX too, just in case raising NO3 doesn't help by itself.